


In a dream, he saw

by spacepillow



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Character Study, Enemies to Lovers, Fix-It, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season 3 Spoilers, Touch-Starved, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-11-01 02:38:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20807231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacepillow/pseuds/spacepillow
Summary: Steve has lived with monsters all his life.(aka Steve character study with a side helping of Harringrove)





	In a dream, he saw

When Steve was six years old, he was convinced that there were monsters under his bed. He never saw them, but he could hear their movements and their raspy breathing

_ (there must have been a whole legion of them). _

Every night he would get under the covers with the glow of his bedside lamp bathing the room in warm light. If he was lucky, it stayed that way until the morning. If he was not, his babysitter remembered to come upstairs to wish him a good night.

He made a mistake of asking for help only once. She laughed and told him he was too old to sleep with the lights on. There was nothing scary in the dark. What a silly

_(stupid and cowardly)_

boy he was for believing otherwise.

So Steve got used to pulling the covers over his head and breathing in the strong smell of flowery laundry detergent. He stubbornly tried to ignore the sounds he knew weren't truly there. There could be nothing moving in the dark, floorboards under his bed couldn't be creaking. He was all alone.

He was always so alone.

#

He dreamed of the woods, sometimes. He dreamed of bare tree branches moving without the wind, trying to tangle in his clothes. He dreamed of the night, of the yellow moon hanging low in the sky and large shapeless things moving in the darkness. His dreams weren't violent then, not yet. But he still screamed after waking up, the acidic taste of fear lingering in his throat.

His father expected him to be brave, so Steve tried to be brave. And when he couldn't, he tried to be quiet - a skill that would come in handy many times in the future.

As he grew older, his nightmares changed and he remembered them less and less. The fear of the dark never left him. He thought it did, for a while

_(for ten long years). _

But as it turned out, monsters were never too far away.

#

The truth was: the worst dreams of all were the ones in which he ran with the monsters, in which he was one of them. They made him feel strong and invincible.

And free.

#

Not long before coming face to face with real monsters, Steve discovered violence.

He was fourteen and his parents sent him away to Italy, to spent some time with his grandparents. He was glad, although he suspected they just wanted to get rid of him for the summer, to feel young and in love again.

Steve liked Italy. He enjoyed the sun and the salty taste of seawater. But evenings on the beach were his favourite; that was when all neighborhood kids came together to play volleyball. He didn't feel brave enough to participate, but felt a warm sense of happiness just watching them ran around and argue among themselves. They looked like a rag tag family and it would take him a few more years to admit that it made him jealous.

There was one particular boy, no more than two years older than him, with long brown hair and sparkling blue eyes. Steve couldn't look away from him. He tried, he truly tried

_(he didn't try at all),_

but there was something almost hypnotising in the way sweat rolled down his chest, in how it made his sun-kissed skin glisten.

One of those long summer days, the other boy caught him looking.

And maybe he was right in being offended. Maybe Steve deserved to have his nose broken and his ribs bruised. He most definitely deserved the names they called him, but didn't understand why they shoud make him feel ashamed.

"You should be careful, my boy," his grandma said later that night, her eyes soft and knowing as she passed him an ice pack. "You have a gentle heart. This world will try to eat you whole."

#

The secret Steve held close to his chest, the secret he never told anyone was this: a little pain was a fair price to pay for having someone else's hands on his skin.

More than that: there was a strange kind of pleasure to be found in pain inflicted by someone you desired.

Steve suspected there was something wrong with him, something damaged right at the core of his being, to even entertain that train of thought.

#

Steve couldn't remember the first time he saw Nancy Wheeler. He couldn't remember the time when he didn't want her, when he didn't seek her presence hoping... hoping...

_ (Steve always had a lot of stupid hope in his confused little heart)_

Nancy was so much smarter and braver than him. She made him believe in miracles and wonders and all things good and kind. He wanted to be a better man for her. He thought

_(hoped) _

she might be the one to save him, to smooth over his sharp edges and quieten his dreams.

But in truth, loving her made him even more selfish.

He hated the jealous, insecure part of himself that drove him to write those horrible things about her, to bully Jonathan. He couldn't even look at himself in the mirror without feeling worthless. He didn't want to allow the worst parts of his nature to define what kind of man he'll become.

Letting go of Nancy was one of the hardest things he had ever done. Not because of losing her love, but because it forced him to confront the knowledge that not all monsters thrived in the dark; some of them wore pastel colours and basked in the daylight.

Sometimes, it was just a matter of choice.

#

And then Steve met the real monsters.

#

After that horrible night in the Byers house, Steve started dreaming again

_ (not that he ever truly stopped)._

They weren't the same dreams he had as a child. But the feeling they left him with was quite similar. Fear. Always that goddamn humiliating fear. He couldn't rememeber the details after waking up, but he didn't need to. The images, the memories - they plagued him even when he was fully awake. He saw monsters climbing out of his walls, hiding behind tall trees growing by the road.

Maybe there was a name for what he was experiencing and he just wasn't smart enough to know it. The others seemed fine. Even the kids. He couldn't be

_ (a coward) _

the only one needing comfort. Deep down he understood that feeling things more vividly than others didn't make him weak. But that little voice in the back of his head wouldn't let him ask for help. It sounded strangely like his father.

It was kinda funny how he could still hear his voice so clearly. He was almost never around, traveling the world for business or pleasure. Steve haunted his own family home with just a lingering smell of his dissapointment to keep him company.

#

Billy Hargrove was the epitome of all the things Steve knew were bad for him. Too confident and angry, with something

_ (monstrous) _

dangerous in the way he moved and talked.

He carelessly invaded Steve's personal space, praised and devalued him in one breath. He shadowed him during practice and heady smell of his skin was slowly driving Steve mad. He wished Billy would lay his hands on him, push him, hit him. Anything to break this unbearable tension.

Billy's smile was sharp. He looked like he knew all of Steve's secrets and would not hesitate to use them against him. He seemed to treat him like a challenge, neither rules nor objective of which were clear to Steve.

The smart thing to do would be to run the other way. But he knew he won't be able to do that. Billy's draw was too strong.

The strange thing was, every time Steve's eyes strayed towards him in the school corridors or during classess, Billy was already looking at Steve too.

#

Another secret: he didn't blame Nancy for choosing Jonathan

_ (bullshit),_

but he honestly hoped things would work out between them. He wouldn't survive falling in love with her and losing her for the third time.

#

"No one tells me what to do!"

After the junkyard, riding high on adrenaline, fighting with Billy seemed like a good idea. But five seconds in, and Steve was practically sure the other man was going to kill him.

With blood dripping from his mouth and an unhinged smile, Billy seemed completely mad. There was no telling what he was capable of, all limits were erased. It was almost like he no longer fought with Steve but with something far more horrible and frightening. Some kind of

_(monster)_

nightmare of his own.

It wouldn't take much longer. Steve had a fleeting thought to just let him do whatever he wanted. To quietly lay back and take it. Just a little more pain.

But the kids! Oh, the kids...

Steve slipped into unconsciousness and it was almost like slipping into a dream.

#

Steve's dreams shifted, again. More often than not, when he finally managed to close his eyes, he saw Billy. He felt his fists, tasted his sweat and blood in his own mouth.

Usually, he died in those dreams. Max was too slow to help him or she wasn't there at all and the horrible screeching of demodogs filled his ears.

Sometimes, he dreamed of killing Billy instead. It was even worse. It made him feel guilty and cold and triumphant all at once.

And then he'd wake up scared and drenched in sweat, fighting the desire to call Max and ask if her brother was alright.

#

Here's another secret: there was a third, the rarest kind of dreams. The ones in which they were alone in the Byers house and Billy still broke his face after throwing him to the ground. Then he tore off his clothes and held Steve down and...

A secret within a secret: those kinds of dreams didn't feel like nightmares at all.

#

Somehow he got roped into the business of Upside Down.

It was probably Dustin's fault. Steve always had a soft spot for lonely people.

Or maybe it was preordained. Maybe he was always meant to end up right there, in dark tunnels beneath Hawkins, Indiana, with screaming Dustin under one arm and a baseball bat under the other. Maybe it was always the Upside Down he saw when he closed his eyes. It infiltrated his childhood dreams trying to break him or to prepare him for the inevitable.

Or maybe not. Steve has lived with monsters all his life but he knew, he wasn't destined to be a hero.

He was just along for the ride.

#

El closing the Gate didn't bring him the relief he hoped for. He still dreamt, and in his dreams he died a thousand deaths. He was torn apart by monsters in the junkyard, suffocated in the tunnels, broke into pieces in Billy's hands. He saw his friends dying

_ (because of his weakness)_

in a world that looked almost like their world but in truth was something different.

Having all the lights on after dark was a must. Drinking helped, too. Fighting or fucking were best, allowed him to get lost in ordinary people's lives and ordinary people's problems. He could pretend there were no monsters in this city and there was no one to prove him wrong.

But that night when Steve went looking for trouble, the trouble he found was Billy.

#

He saw Billy in the back of the bar, talking to some older guy. His shirt was unbuttoned right down to his navel, showing off his muscular chest. His earring reflected light.

There was something dangerous about him and Steve couldn't tear his eyes away. They haven't spoken to each other since the Byers house. There was no way to predict what could happen in that dim darkness of the bar, where

_ (for a little while)_

they could be anyone they wanted to be.

Billy caught his gaze and smirked. Steve felt his hands start to shake.

Billy abandoned his companion without as much as a backwards glance. He dropped onto the barstool next to Steve and carelessly leaned into his personal space. Strong smell of alcohol clung to his skin.

"What is a pretty boy like you doing in an awful place like this?" his warm breath tickled Steve's ear. The last time they were so close together, Billy almost killed him.

The thought sent a hot shiver down Steve's spine

_ (pleasure and pain, hopelessly entwined inside his mind)._

"Are you trying to pick me up, Hargrove?

"And what if I do?

Steve licked his lips. There was something manic in the glint of Billy's eyes. The edge of desperation in his voice.

"Take me home, Harrington."

Steve did.

#

Billy tasted like alcohol and cigarettes and heartache. There was nothing gentle in the way he touched Steve. His hands were harsh, demanding; he didn't seem able to help himself. Their clothes ended up strawn on the floor as they stumbled through the dark and silent house.

Steve was under no illusion about this frantic thing between them. Billy wanted a warm body, anyone would do. And Steve wanted

_ (to be hurt)_

the same, so for once their needs met right in the middle.

Billy had bruises on his chest. He slapped Steve's hand away when he tried to touch them.

"On your hands and knees, Harrington," Billy demanded and Steve went without a protest. He felt hot all over, like his body was on fire. It was so different to the cold stillness of the Upside Down that it almost made him cry in relief.

Billy fucked him roughly, but didn't

_ (break him)_

go too far, didn't make him bleed. Even though he could, even though Steve would let him.

Maybe it was his way of apologizing.

Afterwards, Billy left without a single word. Steve hoped his fingers left a trail of bruises on his hips and lower back, some kind of proof his touch was real.

He slept soundly that night. And even if he dreamed, he didn't remember anything after waking up.

#

A week later, when Steve's house became a prison and even whisky couldn't keep him calm, he came back to the bar.

Billy was already there, shirt unbuttoned and hands buried in some other man's hair. There was blood on his face and Steve had only one clear thought: _well shit_.

#

A moment of truth: he never planned on making a habit of inviting Billy into his bed. But he wasn't exactly opposed to the idea.

#

"What the hell is going on with you?" Dustin whined. "You're never around anymore."

"Don't be so dramatic, man."

They were walking through the woods, looking for some obscure plant Steve already forgot the name of. Science was never his strongest subject. He just hoped Dustin wasn't planning on poisoning someone with it.

"You missed the last two games. You forgot about the movie night. And even when you are with us, you seem distracted."

Steve felt guilty. He didn't want to admit it, but the kid was right. Lately he got so caught up with Billy that he could hardly think about anything else.

"Nancy misses you too, you know. She might not love you anymore, but she can still be your friend."

Where Nancy was good and kind, Billy was unpredictable, just as Steve suspected he might be. He still antagonized him at practice but took great care not to spent time with him in public. He was fond of climbling through Steve's window in the middle of the night and unashamed of the physical side of their...

_ (relationship)_

thing. However, when it came to sharing other parts of himself, he was incredbly cagey. He refused to talk about his bruises or his family or his hopes for the future. He was quiet a lot, seemed to rely on touch to communicate what he felt.

Steve had an inkling, Billy was really good at hiding.

"D&D tomorrow at Will's house," Dustin pointed angrilly at Steve. "Be there or else."

"Alright, alright!"

Steve promised himself to be a better friend. They all deserved it.

#

There was a monster in his bed, a monster with eyes bluer than the sky and the ocean. He moved inside him relentlessly, like a tide, filled him to the brim and released him. He held him down and sheltered him from the

_ (darkness)_

world.

Steve choked on his own breath, overwhelmed by heat and closeness. He liked to think that Billy would stop if he asked him to. That he wouldn't really hurt him. But he couldn't be sure.

He knew Billy would be gone before the sunrise, but he'd still be able to smell him on his skin. He'd be able to smell him on his sheets for the whole week.

And the truly alarming thing was, he didn't really mind.

#

That summer, Steve went a little mad. He shaped his life around Billy, became fully focused only in his company, when their skin was touching and their breaths were mingling. Everything else was an afterthought - his silly job, college applications, perpetually empty house.

"I worry about you," Nancy told him during a movie night at the Byers house. And he believed her, even though her eyes kept straying to Jonathan, sprawled on the floor, arguing with Mike and Dustin about pizza toppings.

"There's no need," he reassured her, already thinking about Billy getting on his knees for him the night before. He let Steve fuck his mouth until tears streamed down his cheeks. His voice was hoarse and dry afterwards, but he didn't complain. He even let Steve embrace him and caress his hair and that more than anything else made him think that Billy was equally

_ (fucked up)_

touched-starved as him. He would greedily take whatever he was given but had no idea how to ask

for

_ (kindness)_

more.

Sometimes, he wished things could be different between them. He wished he could make Billy dinner and ask him about his day. He imagined drifting to sleep by his side and waking up in the morning to see his face bathed in sunlight.

"You can talk to me, Steve. You know that, right?"

"Yeah. I know, Nance."

_ (bullshit)_

#

Billy wasn't a sharing type so Steve greedily gathered every bit of information he let slip.

He knew that Billy didn't like to be touched without permission. That he hated the taste of whisky but could drink his own weight in martini and still be able to perfectly recite the lyrics to Metallica's "Seek & Destroy". That his mother was dead and his father was

_ (a monster)_

an asshole and Billy missed California like a lost limb.

He knew that underneath Billy's anger was a whole ocean of fear. And it didn't make everything okay but it somehow made Steve hopeful. If Billy wasn't a monster at heart, maybe there was a chance for them after all.

#

He really should have realized sooner that there was something wrong with Billy. That his silences had a different quality, that his touch became more frantic and violent. That every day Steve woke up with new bruises he wasn't sure were made purposefully.

But they never talked about stuff like that. If Steve tried to force a confrontation, Billy might leave. It was not a risk he was willing to take. So he didn't know that for some time, he had a different kind of monster in his bed.

When they all realized that the trail of bodies ended up on Billy's doorstep, it was far too late.

#

Steve thought he knew hearbreak after Nancy left him. But it was a child's play compared to the way he felt seeing the corpse of Billy's father sprawled on dirty carpet.

"Is that blood?!" Dustin screamed.

"Don't look!" Steve grabbed his arm and bodily pushed him out of the room.

"Is he dead? Steve? What should we do?"

"We'll call Hopper," Steve wasn't great at rational thinking but even he realized that this situation was far too fucked up for them to deal with on their own.

Billy

_ (the thing wearing Billy's face, speaking with his voice)_

murdered his father. There might be no going back

_ (for him)_

from this.

#

El told them about the beach and the raging storm and...

"He has your name written inside his mind."

"It can't be right," Steve choked out. He felt the heavy weight of others' eyes on him.

"Friends don't lie!"

"I know, I know! But whatever you think you saw, it's not what Billy and I are to each other. I cannot reach him."

"I can," El said. She reached out, her small hand trembling. There were smears of blood on her pale skin. "You just have to remind him why is it worth it to come back."

"Can somebody explain what the hell..."

"Shut up, Mike!" Dustin snapped. His eyes were wide with all the love and understanding only a pure-hearted teenaged nerd was able to give. "Go on, Steve. Save him."

#

It didn't work. Billy was too far

_ (broken and burned and bent out of shape)_

gone, too good of a host. Monsters were unwilling to let him go.

Steve wanted to weep, to mourn the life he just started to want. But there was no time for sentimentalities. They had the world to save. And like it or not, none of them had the option to walk away from it.

#

Billy saved El.

Billy, who they all thought mad; who they despised and wrote off. Billy,

_ (who had Steve's name burned into his mind) _

who was bleeding out on the ground.

"Don't go," Steve begged. He went down on his knees by Billy's side. The substance flowing from his wounds was too dark and thick to be blood, but Steve tried not to think about that. He might go insane otherwise.

Others kept their distance, unsure how to behave. Was this one

_ (final) _

act of heroism enough to redeem Billy? Was he one of them now? Should they cry for him?

Steve touched his cheek. He was very cold.

"I am not done with you."

And in some strange turn of fate, Billy opened his eyes. For a moment it seemed like it was Steve's voice, Steve's command that reached him in the Upside Down and brought him back into the light.

"Steve?"

And it was scary, because Billy's words were always crafted to hurt. He never said Steve's name with warmth or wonder, never used it when it truly mattered.

And yet, he used it now.

And Steve felt lost.

"You're gonna be okay, Billy. You're alive. We'll figure everything else out."

"You told me not to go," Billy said and his voice sounded like cold ocean weaves.

Steve leaned down and rested his head in the crook of Billy's neck. Familiar smell of his skin was still there, even underneath all the blood and sweat and liquid darkness.

"You told me not to go, Steve."

"Oh my God!" Dustin screamed. Robin covered his eyes.

#

Truth: Steve would love Billy to the end of his days, just for the way he looked at him when he came back from the dead

_ (he truly came back from the dead for him). _

#

After the Star Court, Billy was different. Some changes were obvious, like his scars

_ (deep and extensive and burning white in the sunlight)._

Some might have been

_ (too horrible to think of)_

only imagined. Like, sometimes, when Steve looked at him out of the corner of his eye, he wasn't sure he was seeing a young man or something different. Something terrible. Something not quite human.

There was a newfound sense of quiet surrounding him. His anger wasn't completely gone, but became somehow contained. It was like he gained the ability to use it, howewer and whenever he wanted. He was still an asshole to most people, although he was no longer cruel. He also seemed to develop a soft spot for El, but no one could really blame him for that.

Billy might still be a

_ (monster) _

little lost and crazy, but he was theirs.

And anyway, the most glaring difference was in a way he touched Steve. He was careful, like he was afraid he might hurt him.

It was almost like he still believed he was to blame for

_ (the murders) _

the things he did while mind flayed. Sometimes Steve caught him washing his hands in scaldingly hot water or putting them close to the open flames of his matches. It was frightening, the vacant look he got in those moments. Like he wasn't really

_ (himself) _

present.

For the longest time Steve thought that being kind wasn't in Billy's nature. That he was made for harsh words and cruel touches. But maybe he was wrong. Maybe Billy always had the capacity for tenderness but had to bury that part deep inside of himself, just in order to survive. Maybe he buried it so deep he forgot it ever existed.

He tried to be different, now. More generous and gentle. He tried to make love to Steve even though he didn't really know what it meant.

#

Steve still dreamed complicated dreams

_ (he might never stop). _

But he was no longer dealing with them on his own.

#

At what point the monster you know stops being a monster? Could a monster ever love you back?

Steve looked at Billy sleeping peacefully next to him. He seemed young and vulnerable, pale lines of scars plainly visible on his face. He looked almost delicate.

Steve had a sudden epiphany that no one was doomed to repeat the past mistakes. That the circle of violence could be broken.

And it all came down to a choice.

"Are you watching me sleep again?" Billy murmured and Steve felt something warm unfurl inside his chest.

"And what if I am?"

Billy's eyes were very bright and very blue in the light of the morning sun.

"I think I could get used to it."

Steve smiled and leaned down to kiss him. Because he wanted to and he knew Billy would let him. He still wasn't very good at asking for

_ (love)_

affection but was getting better at accepting it.

"Would you like to stay the night?" Steve asked on impulse, but to his own ears it sounded like

_ (would you like to stay with me for the rest of your life?) _

something else.

"It's only morning. And I've already stayed here for a whole week."

"So?"

"Maybe five more minutes," Billy agreed with a soft smile.

And it sounded like something else, too.

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first language and I had no beta. Apologies.


End file.
